Those who said the country would go to the dogs when Sleepy Joe Biden became president now know how right they were.
A top Pentagon official and an associate are charged with promoting and furthering an animal fighting venture. Specifically, Frederick Douglass Moorefield Jr. — deputy chief information officer for command, control, and communications — and Mario Damon Flythe, a barber, staged and promoted dogfights, federal prosecutors allege.
The criminal complaint against Moorefield describes a particularly brutal operation, and alleges that Moorefield electrocuted dogs who lost fights.
The Complaint
The beginning of the end of Moorefield’s illegal venture, the complaint says, began on August 23, 2022, when a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted seven men involved in dog fighting.
After guilty pleas, some of the men revealed that they used Telegram “to create and use private groups that they generally referred to as ‘the DMV Board’ or ‘the Board,’ where they and their associates could discuss training fighting dogs, exchange videos about dogfighting, and arrange and coordinate dogfights and associated wagers, all away from the view of law enforcement authorities.”
From that information, authorities learned that Moorefield was involved and used the kennel name “Geehad.” On June 28, 2020, the complaint alleges, a “Geehad” dog lost a fight.
Other evidence that Moorefield was involved in the vicious “sport” had surfaced almost five years ago at his home, which the complaint calls the “Dividing Creek premises”:
In November 2018, Anne Arundel County Animal Control responded to a report of two dead dogs in a plastic dog food bag in Annapolis, Maryland. The location where the dogs were found was approximately six miles from MOOREFIELD’s residence in Arnold, Maryland. In addition to the dogs in the bag, investigators found mail inside the bag that was addressed to MOOREFIELD at the Dividing Creek Premises.
A necropsy on the dogs was inconclusive. But “the distribution and number of recent and healed dog bite wounds (scars) present on both dogs was consistent with organized dogfighting.”
As well, Moorefield posted his dogs’ pedigrees on a website, the complaint alleges, which showed that he “has been involved in dogfighting since at least 2002.”
Photographs at Moorefield’s iCloud account depicted artwork connected with “Geehad Kennels” and featured a cartoon pit bull. The account also contained a training regimen, along with videos, photos, text messages, and “other media” that were evidence of dogfighting, some of it at his home.
A photograph taken there in April 2020 showed a dog with “scarring and wound patterns on its face and legs consistent with dogfighting,” the complaint alleges.
Moorefield’s iCloud account also contained videos of fighting dogs on treadmills at Dividing Creek, while another photograph showed “approximately 15 different large bags of dog food in the back of a dark-colored vehicle.”
A search of the premises turned up “thick-barred metal cages, some of which held the seized dogs when the search team arrived at the premises,” along with weighted collars, heavy metal chains, and an implement to inseminate females. Hair and bloodstains were on the walls, furniture, and elsewhere.
Agents also seized Winstrol, an anabolic steroid, syringes, a veterinary staple gun, and a carpet with bloodstains.
They also found this grim item: “a device consisting of jumper cables attached to an electrical plug … which, based on [FBI Special Agent Ryan Daly’s] training and experience, is used to electrocute a dog after losing a fight.”
Agents seized five dogs from Moorefield’s home and seven from Flythe’s.
Moorefield staged fights as far away as New Jersey.
Moorefield and his partner in crime face five years in federal prison, and the Defense Department has fired him.
Michael Vick
Moorefield isn’t the only prominent individual collared for dogfighting. In 2007, Michael Vick, then a quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, served 21 months in prison for running Bad Newz Kennels.
Federal agents seized more than four dozen dogs, along with dogfighting paraphernalia. Those items included a “rape stand” to hold females too aggressive to breed peacefully. One female from the seizure had no teeth, presumably to keep it from biting males during breeding.
That didn’t inspire the NFL to permanently ban Vick. After prison, he joined the Philadelphia Eagles, then played for the New York Jets and Pittsburgh Steelers. Mistreating animals and killing them apparently doesn’t bother the worthies of the NFL. Then again, neither do other serious crimes, which is why it’s called the National Felons League.
Dogfighting is a lucrative business, the ASPCA reports:
Major dogfight raids have resulted in seizures of more than $500,000, and it is not unusual for $20,000 – $30,000 to change hands in a single fight. Stud fees and the sale of pups from promising bloodlines can also bring in thousands of dollars.
Executing dogs that don’t perform as the owner expects — i.e., by losing — is routine.
And “if the losing dog is perceived to be a particular embarrassment to the reputation or status of its owner, it may be executed in a particularly brutal fashion as part of the ‘entertainment.’”
Dogfighting is a felony in all 50 states.
